Pinwheels

Since I'm feeling slightly more coherent now that I've had food, I'll add a few things about the trip.

Last year, I wanted to put a pinwheel on Grandma's grave while we were in Akron, but I couldn't find one, so this spring when they were in the stores, I bought several. Six of them. Three purple, two blue, one red. Nothing fancy: just shiny material on a plastic stick, with a pin to rotate on. The morning we were in Akron, I walked over to the graveyard (which I found despite my mom's bad directions), and put the red one on Grandma and Grandad's grave. Then I sat down and played my singing bowl for a while. In a way, it was their last gift to me.

Shortly before my birthday, I came across one of Grandad's old wallets. In it, I found $200 as well as a large collection of $2 bills. I showed it to Mom, and kept $100 as a sort of finder's fee. Grandma always used to give me money on my birthday, so this really felt like one last birthday present from her. I wanted to buy something special with it. At one of the Tibetan import stores in Fort Collins, I found a singing bowl that would use up nearly all of the money. Including the striker and the cushion, it wound up using all of the money, and a little bit extra. I've been wanting a singing bowl for quite a while, but was never willing to spend my own money on it. Now I have something I love... that will forever remind me of my grandparents. That's why I had to bring it to their grave and play it.

I don't know how long I sat there in the grass, letting the bowl sing. I suspect it was quite a while as I was rather late getting back to the hotel, so late that my mom was getting worried. When I felt it was enough, I stood and decided to try and find my great-grandma Fern's grave. I had no clue where it was, and spent more time trying to find it, unsuccessfully. When my mom brought me back to place the rest of the pinwheels, she showed me where it was: just two rows back from Grandma and Grandad's grave. Four of the pinwheels went to them; the other two to Grandma Fern. It was windy enough that day that they all spun beautifully.